It was over a year ago that I first saw this flying insect that had caught a large spider and was dragging it off somewhere presumably to eat. I’d never seen anything like it and I spent a while researching to try and work out what it was. At the time I thought it was a robber fly but now I think it’s a spider wasp! Robber flys do indeed prey on some spiders and other insects but the images really dont look anything like what I’d seen. The spider wasp is a much closer match. I’ve seen a few now, here’s some pictures of a smaller spider wasp with another decent sized spider. This particular one was struggling a bit with it’s prey. It even tried to fly a bit and only just managed it. Looking at the picture the spider could easily weigh more than the wasp! Spider wasps are known to chop off the legs of the spider to make it easier to carry. All the ones I’ve seen the spiders are missing their legs. Nature is brutal!

[update] – When I wrote this I thought the creature was a robber fly, now I think it’s a spider wasp. Here’s something you don’t see every day, a large fly like creature walking along carrying a sizeable spider underneath it! Now that’s a prey reversal! A bit like seeing a huge rat hauling a dead cat somewhere. The fly was black, about 4cm in length with long legs that allowed it to carry the spider underneath it and still walk easily. The one I saw was on a mission to get somewhere, it walked quickly over the pavement for about 4m and then climbed a wall before I lost it. It had wings but didn’t try to fly, maybe the spider was too heavy for it. The spider was slightly longer than the fly and looked bulkier, all the spiders legs were gone and it was being carried inverted with it’s abdomen towards the front of the fly.

They’re back, and they still have an appetite for destruction! Every year about this time the black cockies visit for a day or two, tear up the Banksia trees in our yard then leave.

Black Cockie tearing up a Banksia

Sulphur Crested Cockies are here in abundance year round, Black Cockies only visit for a few days per year, sometimes I miss them altogether. Yellow tailed black cockatoos are larger than their sulphur crested cousins, they have a louder and more piercing shriek too. A few days before I saw the black cockies this year I heard a chilling shriek in the valley after dark, for a moment I thought it sounded like a person in distress, but I figured it was more animal like. After I saw the Cockies I now think that’s what it was.

Tiliqua scincoides

Here’s an animal that every Australian knows. The Blue Tongue Lizard is common in bushland and suburban backyards of Eastern Australia, but even the familiar has the capacity to surprise as I found out with this one! The family was visiting friends in Gerringong 1 1/2 hrs south of Sydney. The kids came running in from the back yard saying they they had found a snake. We went out to take a look and found what was clearly a Blue Tongue Lizard half obscured under the back step. It’s legs were tucked under it’s body so it’s understandable that the kids though it was a snake. There was a small crowd of us watching it when it started to slowly lumber out of it’s hiding spot. The lizard seemed quite fat even for a Blue Tongue which I commented on, then all of a sudden a fully formed baby lizard popped out from the underside! It was a mum giving birth!

Eupoecila australasiae

I was working in the yard when Jess called me over to see a beetle she’d found. I was a bit reluctant to stop work but she convinced me “c’mon dad, you’ll love it!” She was right. With a quick search this beetle was simple to identify as a Fiddler Beetle.

Fiddler beetle of Eastern Australia. This one’s name is Lightning McFiddler

Fiddler Beetles are native to Australia, they are found all the way up and down the east coast. The first thing you notice about them is their appearance, they are black with a striking pattern of yellow or green markings that look like they have been applied as part of a carefully thought out tribal design. The one Jess found had green markings. Not sure if it was male or female, often in nature the males are more visually striking than the ladies but I couldn’t find any sources that distinguished between the two in appearance. Fiddler beetles live in heathland, eucalypt forest and suburban parks and yards. They lay their eggs in rotting logs or damp soil. After hatching the grubs eat wood until they are ready to emerge as adult beetles in the early summer.

Theseus modestus

It took 4 years for me to finally work out what my “Unknown Bug” is! Finding the Cotton Harlequin Bug was what lead me to it. I recognized that they look quite similar in structure and shape. This gave me some more terms to search for ( shield bug ) and I finally got a match! So it’s with belated pride I’d like to introduce to you, the “Gum Tree Shield Bug” otherwise known as a “Stink Bug”!

Tectocoris diophthalmus

A few weeks ago we visited friends in their new highrise apartment in town. It was an awesome place, typical modern apartments, all fitted out with parking and facilities including a great indoor pool that we had a lot of fun in with the kids. They were on the 30th floor ( I think ) very high up anyway. It was the last place I would have expected to see some interesting wildlife but while Jess and I were out on the balcony scaring ourselves with the height ( ok, mostly me being scared  ) I spotted a strikingly coloured bug crawling on the tiles. I gave it to Jess, we both marveled at it and took some photos. I’ve found it hard to identify bugs in the past and didn’t expect to be able to work out what this one is, but by luck someone had found exactly the same creature and sent in a photo to the North Shore Times where it was identified by the Australian Museum as a “Cotton Harlequin Bug”!

Ptilonorhynchus violaceus

The family spent the long weekend at Wombeyan Caves.  They are a group of a few hundred limestone caves set in the Wombeyan Karst Conservation Reserve located about 70Km west of Mittagong. It’s a remote location, there’s a lot of wildlife in the area, we saw a few  different species of kangaroo and a lot of birds. On of them was the Satin Bowerbird. I noticed one loitering around under the camp table during the day, one of our friends we were with identified it. As usual a new one for me. The one near the table was a male, all black with a brilliant blue sheen. I’d noticed a group of dusky green birds cavorting around in the early morning, it turns out they were the females.

Perga dorsalis

First up it’s not a caterpillar, it totally looks like one but it’s not! It took a bit of searching to find it’s actually a Steel Blue Sawfly Larvae. Sawflys are large flying insects that are closely related to wasps. Caterpillars on the other hand are the larvae of butterflies and moths. The Steel Blue Sawfly Larvae is commonly known as a “spitfire” or “spitfire caterpillar”.

A sawfly larvae, AKA spitfire, on my hand. Just after the photo it had a big “spit” of yucky yellow fluid onto my hand